‘This isn’t the time, David. Your colleague is dead.’
‘But, Professor, you have to listen. The headings. I’ve fixed them.’
‘Very good, David. We’ll talk tomorrow.’
Then David Pappas did something he would never have done were it not for the tension of that night. Grabbing Forrester’s blanket, he jerked the old man around to face him.
‘You don’t understand. We have a peak. A 7911!’
At first Professor Forrester didn’t react, but then he spoke very slowly and deliberately, in such a low voice that David could hardly hear him.
‘How big?’
‘Huge, sir.’
The professor fell to his knees. Unable to speak, he leaned backward and forward in mute supplication.
‘What’s a 7911, David?’ asked Andrea.
‘Atomic weight 79. Position 11 on the periodic table,’ the young man said, his voice breaking. It was as if, in delivering his message, he had emptied himself. His eyes were on the corpse.
‘And that is…?’
‘Gold, Ms Otero. Stowe Erling had found the Ark of the Covenant.’
37
Some Facts about the Arc of the Covenant, Transcribed from the Moleskin Notebook of Professor Cecyl Forrester
The Bible says: ‘And they shall make an Ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and thou shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about. And thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof; and two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings in the other side of it. And thou shalt make staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put the staves into the rings by the sides of the Ark, that the Ark may be borne with them.’
I’ll apply the measurements of the regular cubit. I know I’ll be criticised because few scholars do; they rely on the Egyptian cubit and the ‘sacred’ cubit, which are much more glamorous. But I’m right.
This is what we know for sure about the Ark:
• Year of construction: 1453 BC at the foot of Mount Sinai.
• 44 inches long
• 25 inches wide
• 25 inches high
• 84-gallon capacity
• 600 pounds in weight
There are people who would suggest that the weight of the Ark was greater, around 1,100 pounds. Additionally, there is an idiot who dared to insist that the Ark weighed more than a ton. That is crazy. And they call themselves experts. They love to add the weight of the Ark itself. Poor idiots. They don’t realise that gold, even though it is heavy, is too soft. The rings could not have supported such weight, nor would the wooden poles have been long enough for more than four men to carry it comfortably.
Gold is a very soft metal. Last year I saw a whole room covered in thin sheets of gold made from one good-sized coin, following methods dating back to the Bronze Age. The Jews were skilled crafts-men, and did not have great amounts of gold in the desert, nor would they have burdened themselves with such a great weight that they left themselves vulnerable to their enemies. No, they would have used a small amount of gold and created thin sheets of it to cover the wood. Shittim wood, or acacia, is a solid wood that could last centuries without being damaged, especially if it was covered by a thin layer of metal that did not rust and was indifferent to the effects of time. It was an object built for eternity. How could it be otherwise, since it was the Timeless One who gave the instructions?
38
THE EXCAVATION
AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN
Friday, 14 July 2006. 2:21 p.m.
‘So the data had been manipulated.’
‘Somebody else had the information, Father.’
‘That’s why they killed him.’
‘I understand the what, where and when. If you’ll just give me the how and the who, I’ll be the happiest woman in the world.’
‘I’m working on it.’
‘Do you think it was an outsider? Maybe the man I saw at the top of the canyon?’
‘I don’t think you’re that foolish, young lady.’
‘I still feel guilty.’
‘Well, you should stop. I was the one who asked you not to tell anyone. But believe me: someone in this expedition is a murderer. That’s why it’s more important than ever that we talk to Albert.’
‘OK. But I think you know more than you’re telling me – much more. Yesterday there was an unusual amount of activity in the canyon for that time of night. The doctor wasn’t in her bed.’
‘I told you… I’m working on it.’
‘Shit, Father. You’re the only person I know who speaks so many languages but doesn’t like to talk.’
Father Fowler and Andrea Otero were sitting in the shade of the west wall of the canyon. Since nobody had slept much the night before, after the shock of Stowe Erling’s murder, the day had begun slowly and heavily. However, little by little, the knowledge that Stowe’s magnetometer had discovered gold began to eclipse the tragedy, altering the mood in the camp. There was a whirlwind of activity around quadrant 22K, with Professor Forrester at its centre: analysis of the composition of the rocks, further tests with a magnetometer and, above all, measurements of the solidity of the ground for digging.
The procedure consisted of running an electric wire through the ground to find out how much current it would handle. A hole filled with earth, for example, has less electrical resistance than the undisturbed ground around it.
The results of the test were conclusive: the ground at this point was very unstable. This infuriated Forrester. Andrea watched as he gesticulated wildly, throwing papers into the air and insulting his workers.
‘Why is the professor so angry?’ asked Fowler.
The priest was sitting on a flat rock about a foot and a half above Andrea. He had been playing with a small screwdriver and some cables that he had taken from Brian Hanley’s toolbox, paying little heed to what was going on around him.
‘They’ve been running tests. They can’t simply dig up the Ark,’ Andrea replied. She had spoken with David Pappas a few minutes before. ‘They believe that it’s in a manmade hole. If they use the mini-excavator there’s a good chance the hole will collapse.’
‘They may have to go around it. That could take weeks.’
Andrea took another series of shots with her digital camera and then looked at them on the monitor. She had some excellent pictures of Forrester literally foaming at the mouth. A frightened Kyra Larsen throwing her head back in shock after the news of Erling’s death.
‘Forrester is screaming at them again. I don’t know how his assistants put up with it.’
‘Maybe that’s what they all need this morning, don’t you think?’
Andrea was about to tell Fowler to stop talking nonsense when she realised that she had always been a fervent believer in using self-punishment as a way of escaping grief.
LB is proof of that. If I practised what I preached, I would have thrown him out of the window a long time ago. Damn cat. I hope he doesn’t eat the neighbour’s shampoo. And if he does, I hope she doesn’t make me pay for it.
Forrester’s screams were inducing people to scurry around like cockroaches when the lights are turned on.
‘Maybe he’s right, Father. But I don’t think it shows much respect for their dead colleague to carry on working.’
Fowler glanced up from his work.
‘I don’t blame him. He has to hurry. Tomorrow’s Saturday.’
‘Oh, yes. The Sabbath. The Jews can’t even turn on a light once the sun sets on Friday. It’s nonsense.’
‘At least they believe in something. What do you believe in?’
‘I’ve always been a practical person.’
‘I suppose you mean a non-believer.’
‘I suppose I mean practical. Wasting two hours a we
ek in a place full of incense would take up exactly 343 days of my life. No offence, but I don’t think it’s worth it. Not even for a supposed eternity.’
The priest chuckled.
‘Have you ever believed in anything?’
‘I believed in a relationship.’
‘What happened?’
‘I screwed up. Let’s just say that she had more faith in it than I did.’
Fowler remained silent. Andrea’s voice had sounded slightly forced. She realised that the priest wanted her to unburden herself.
‘On top of that, Father… I don’t think that faith is the only motivating factor behind this expedition. The Ark is going to be worth a lot of money.’
‘There are roughly 125,000 tons of gold in the world. Do you believe that Mr Kayn needs to go after the thirteen or fourteen inside the Ark?’
‘I’m talking about Forrester and his busy bees,’ Andrea replied. She loved arguing but hated it when her arguments were so easily refuted.
‘All right. Do you want a practical reason? They’re in denial. Their work keeps them going.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Dr Kübler-Ross’s stages of mourning.’
‘Oh, yes. Denial, anger, depression, all that stuff.’
‘Exactly. They’re all in the first phase.’
‘The way the professor is screaming, you’d think he was in the second.’
‘They’ll feel better tonight. Professor Forrester will conduct the hesped, the eulogy. I believe it will be interesting to hear him say something good about someone other than himself.’
‘What’s going to happen to the body, Father?’
‘They’ll put it in a hermetically sealed body bag and bury it for the time being.’
Andrea looked at Fowler in disbelief.
‘You’re joking!’
‘It’s Jewish law. Everyone who dies has to be buried within twenty-four hours.’
‘You know what I mean. Aren’t they going to return him to his family?’
‘Nothing and nobody can leave the camp, Ms Otero. Remember?’
Andrea put the camera in her backpack and lit a cigarette.
‘These people are crazy. I hope this stupid exclusive doesn’t end up wiping all of us out.’
‘Always going on about your exclusive, Ms Otero. I can’t understand what it is that you need so desperately.’
‘Fame and fortune. How about you?’
Fowler stood up and stretched his arms. He leaned backward and his spine gave a loud crack.
‘I’m just following orders. If the Ark is real, the Vatican wants to know, so they can recognise it as the object that holds God’s commandments.’
A very simple answer, quite ingenious. And totally untrue, Father. You’re a very bad liar. But let’s pretend I believe you.
‘Maybe,’ Andrea said after a moment. ‘But in this case, why didn’t your bosses send a historian?’
Fowler showed her what he had been working on.
‘Because a historian couldn’t have done this.”
‘What is it?’ Andrea said curiously. It looked like a simple electrical breaker switch with a pair of wires coming out of it.
‘We’ll have to forget yesterday’s plan for contacting Albert. After Erling’s murder, they’ll be even more on their guard. So this is what we’ll do instead…’
39
THE EXCAVATION
AL MUDAWWARA DESERT, JORDAN
Friday, July 14, 2006. 3:42 p.m.
Father, tell me one more time why I’m doing this.
Because you want to know the truth. The truth about what’s going on here. About why they bothered to contact you in Spain when Kayn could have found a thousand reporters more experienced and famous than you are right there in New York.
The conversation continued to ring in Andrea’s ears. The question was the same one the weak little voice in her head had been asking for quite some time now. It had been drowned out by the Philharmonic of Pride, accompanied by Mr Visa Debt, baritone, and Ms Fame at Any Cost, soprano. But Fowler’s words had given the weak little voice centre stage.
Andrea shook her head, trying to concentrate on what she was doing. The plan was to take advantage of the period when the off-duty soldiers would be trying to rest, taking a nap or playing cards.
‘That’s where you come in,’ Fowler had said. ‘On my signal you slip under the tent.’
‘Between the wooden floor and the sand? Are you crazy?’
‘There’s enough space. You’ll have to crawl about a foot and a half until you reach the electrical panel. The cable that connects the generator and the tent is the orange one. Pull it out quickly; connect it to the end of my cable and the other end of my cable back into the electrical panel. Then press this button every fifteen seconds for three minutes. After that, get out of there fast.’
‘What will that do?’
‘Nothing too complicated technologically. It’ll produce a slight drop in the electrical current without totally cutting it off. The frequency scanner will only shut off twice: once when you connect the cable, the second time when you disconnect it.’
‘And the rest of the time?’
‘It’ll be in start-up mode, like a computer when it’s loading its operating system. As long as they don’t look under the tent there won’t be any problems.’
Except that there was: the heat.
Crawling under the tent when Fowler gave the signal had been easy. Andrea had squatted, pretending to tie her bootlace, looked around and then rolled under the wooden platform. It was like diving into a vat of hot butter. The air was thick with the heat of the day and the generator next to the tent produced broiling drafts of heat that wafted into the space where Andrea had crawled.
She was now under the electrical panel, and her face and arms were burning up. She took out Fowler’s breaker and held it at the ready in her right hand while with her left she pulled sharply on the orange wire. She connected it to Fowler’s device then connected the other end to the panel, and waited.
This useless lying watch. It says only twelve seconds have gone by but it seems more like two minutes. God, I can’t bear this heat!
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
She pressed the breaker button.
Above her, the tone of the soldiers’ voices changed.
Looks like they’ve noticed something. I hope they don’t give it much thought.
She listened more closely to the conversation. It started as a way to distract herself from the heat and keep her from fainting. She hadn’t drunk enough water that morning and was now paying for it. Her throat and lips were parched, and her head felt slightly dizzy. But thirty seconds later, what she was hearing made Andrea begin to panic. So much so that, once the three minutes had elapsed, she was still there pressing the button every fifteen seconds, fighting the feeling that she was about to pass out.
40
SOMEWHERE IN FAIRFAX COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Friday, July 14, 2006. 8:42 a.m.
‘Do you have it?’
‘I think I have something. It hasn’t been easy. This guy is very good at covering his tracks.’
‘I need something more than guesswork, Albert. People have started to die here.’
‘People always die, don’t they?’
‘This time it’s different. It’s scaring me.’
‘You? I don’t believe it. You didn’t even get scared with the Koreans. And that time-’
‘Albert…’
‘Sorry. I’ve called in a few favours. The experts at the CIA have recovered some of the data from the computers at Netcatch. Orville Watson had a lead on a terrorist by the name of Huqan.’
‘Syringe.’
‘If you say so. I don’t know any Arabic. It looks like the guy was after Kayn.’
‘Anything else? Nationality? Ethnic group?’
‘Nothing. Just vague stuff, a couple of intercepted e-mails. None of the files escaped the fire. Hard disks
are very delicate.’
‘You have to find Watson. He’s the key to everything. It’s urgent.’
‘I’m on it.’
41
INSIDE THE SOLDIERS’ TENT, FIVE MINUTES BEFORE
Marla Jackson wasn’t used to reading newspapers, and that was why she ended up in jail. Of course, Marla didn’t see it that way. She thought she had gone to jail for being a good mother.
The truth about Marla’s life lay somewhere between these two extremes. She had had a poor but relatively normal childhood – as normal as a person could have in Lorton, Virginia, whose own citizens referred to it as the armpit of America. Marla was born into a lower-class black family. She played with dolls and a skipping rope, went to school, and fell pregnant at the age of fifteen and a half.
Marla had, in fact, tried to prevent the pregnancy. But she had no way of knowing that Curtis had put a pinhole in the condom. She had no choice. She had heard about the crazy practice among some teenage boys who tried to make themselves look big by getting girls pregnant before they were out of high school. But that was something that happened to other girls. Curtis loved her.
Curtis disappeared.
Marla left high school and entered the not very select club of teenage mothers. Little Mae became the centre of her mother’s life, for better or worse. Left behind were Marla’s dreams of saving enough money to study meteorological photography. Marla took a job at a local factory, which in addition to her responsibilities as a mother, gave her little time for reading newspapers. Which in turn caused her to make a regrettable decision.
One afternoon her boss announced that he wanted to increase her hours. The young mother had already seen women emerging from the factory exhausted, their heads down, carrying their uniforms in supermarket bags; women whose sons had been left alone and had ended up either in reform school or shot up in a gang fight.
Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition Page 16
